


Circus Acts

by VYCanisMajoris



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A lot of cameos by other characters, Acrobat Bucky, Alternate Universe - Circus, F/M, Fluff, I took canon and reinvented it into what you see before you, M/M, Pianist Tony, Pre-Slash, Pre-WinterIron, Tony is easily embarrassed but that's fine cause it's cute, a puppy dog crush makes an appearance, completely different and shamelessly so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VYCanisMajoris/pseuds/VYCanisMajoris
Summary: For a Tumblr Prompt:Bucky would make a great acrobat.





	Circus Acts

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. They belong to Marvel Entertainment. Any writing is completely fan-made and I make no profit from this writing.

“Did you see the new guy?” 

“Hmm?” Tony glances over to Jan. She stretches her arms out again, swinging wide and almost hitting him over the head. Her wings flutter along with her arms, catching the spotlights above, along with the endless sequins covering her costume and scattered along her arms, legs, and face. 

“The new guy – Sam’s friend, I think? The one he always complains about? Says dresses like a hobo and doesn’t know how to do his eyeliner?” Jan shakes out her shoulders as she speaks, the sparkles on her face catching the lights along with her costume. She stretches again, touching the floor with her legs straight, and her wings hit Tony in the face, scattering sequins over his face. He pulls back, spitting them from his mouth, while Jan giggles with every traitorous bone in her body. 

Happy and Pepper run by, fluttering the wings into Tony’s face again, without any remorse. Pepper calls out time warnings to all the performers while Happy digs through the bags, struggling to find the last microphone. Peter ducks around the curtains, nerves quieting him before his first full rehearsal, and Clint appears at Tony’s side, also in costume – a full tuxedo with long tails and a crooked top hat. Shiny purple cloth makes up the suit, in shades varying from aubergine to lilac, along with a quiver hanging from his hip and an equally purple bow in hand. 

When Tony was little and made circuit boards and basic programs that were never good enough, he thought he would become a great engineer like Howard (better, even, though he never told Howard that. He didn’t need more fuel to that fire). 

If not an engineer, then maybe a professional musician, like how his mama always wanted to be. He would get dressed up like she did before galas, warm up the ivories, then play to a concert hall. He had done so before, multiple times, though he never liked all the attention and silence around him as he played. He liked the smile on his mama’s face, though, so he played anyway.

He _didn’t_ think he would make it to eighteen in a too-quiet and too-angry house before running away with the blond neighbor-boy with Band-Aids on his face to join the traveling circus.

Clint still likes to joke about how he was the prince that saved Tony’s unlikely princess. Tony retaliates by being embarrassingly affectionate whenever Natasha walks by, with her throwing knives strapped to her legs, hips, and back, while Clint stares after her, moon-eyed and blushing under Tony’s loud compliments and declarations of love. 

“ _I_ saw him,” Clint says, propping an elbow onto Tony’s shoulder. Sparkles fall off of Clint and onto Tony, making him snuffle and sneeze. Jan, once again the traitor, laughs before helping him brush them from his costume. Jan and Clint can have all the sparkles they want – they’re the visible performers. Tony works in the pit, playing piano and tutoring his new duet partner, a nice kid named Harley who shouldn’t be as much of a smartass as he already is, learn the ropes. 

“Saw who?” Tony asks, slapping the glitter – why is it always glitter? – off of his white gloves. Why white? The rest of his outfit is black, with small accents of gold on his eyes, mouth, and shoes. Add some red in, maybe, and this outfit would knock people’s socks off. But white? That’s just boring.

“James Barnes!” Jan exclaims, hands fluttering around his collar, pushing off more sequins that never seem to stop appearing, “The new acrobat! He’s spotting Peter today – joining Steve’s act, too. All the ladies and guys were saying hi cause, you know…” She trails off, waggling her brows.

“I know…?” Tony repeats, confused. He looks to Clint, who heaves a deep sigh, as if he has any room to talk with his months of obliviousness to Natasha’s attempts at flirting with him, and says, “He’s _super_ hot.” 

“Sam said he looked like a raccoon.”

“With the weird makeup he wears, yeah, but even then, he’s still super hot.”

“And when you hear that from the straight guy who dresses like a frat bro, you _know_ it’s true,” Jan stresses, hiding a smile at Clint’s outraged sputtering. 

“Frat bro? You _made_ me this damn suit!”

“And when you’re not in it, you look like you’re about to play beer pong and get thrown into a ditch!”

“I’ll have you know that I get thrown into _dumpsters_ like any _respectable_ person!” Clint shouts back, as Jan sticks her tongue out at him. Their squabbling breaks apart as the main door opens, and Bruce appears in the opening. He glances between them, shakes his head, and calls out, traces of amusement in his voice, “Five until.” 

“Shit,” Clint mutters, reaching up to fix his hat. During the yelling, it shifted until it was straight, so he makes it crooked again, since Natasha told him once that it looked better like that (Tony made sure to give Clint a loud kiss on the cheek and agree when she said that, to her amusement and Clint’s embarrassment).

“Language,” Bruce, Jan, and Tony chime in together, all sharing a look of surprise and smugness. 

“Yeah, yeah, gotta be PG for the kiddies, I know…” Clint fixes his gloves and starts to help Jan reconfigure her wings, both muttering hopes to each other for the rehearsal. 

Tony leaves them and runs across the stage, not wanting to face Pepper’s wrath for being late to his spot. He ducks under the curtain, making sure to keep his costume perfectly placed while doing so, and appears on the other side. He squints under the bright lights, and once his eyes adjust, he stares up in awe. 

Peter is one of the high fliers, along with Gwen. Together, the two of them, though young, manage to wow the audience every night. They usually have Steve as their base to get them into the air, but tonight Steve and Sam are working with Miles, the newest addition. In Steve’s place, a tall, buff, and incredibly _handsome_ man throws Peter up into the air like Peter weighs no more than a grape – which is somewhat true. The movement highlights the new man’s arms, and Tony hopes to God that he isn’t drooling. 

Peter grabs onto the middle ring with one hand, twisting his body to let the man grab his other hand, then twisting again to pull them both up into the air. Though he looks like an average, gangly high schooler, Peter is almost as strong as Steve. 

As the pair pull themselves into the air, they start the routine, swinging from ring to ring and bar to bar, occasionally grabbing the other by the hand or foot to swing them even higher into the air and catch them. They move gracefully, though somewhat unsure with each other, since this is most likely one of their first joint practices, but each toss into the air makes Tony’s heart pound like he’s watching seasoned professionals. 

By the end of the routine, Tony is just as breathless as they are, and mesmerized as the man lands lightly on his feet before catching Peter in a princess-carry. He deposits Peter to the ground and within in seconds Peter is in front of Tony, breathless and pink-faced with sweat and glitter as he chatters a mile-a-minute, asking, “Did you see that, Mr. Tony? I didn’t mess up at all! I almost did, but Mr. Bucky twisted around so I didn’t! Did you see?”

Peter’s excitement startles a laugh out of Tony, and he reaches out to pat Peter’s sweaty, glittery hair and say, “Yes, I did, and that was _amazing_ , Peter! You’ve come a long way, and I know May is going to be so proud of you!”

The pink of Peter’s face deepens to a dark red, and he looks to the ground and says, softer and with a hint of embarrassment, “Thanks, Mr. Tony.” before dashing off across the stage toward the changing rooms, moving just as quick as he did when he almost tackled Tony. 

Tony glances after him, worried, then looks back and finds the new man standing near Peter’s newly evacuated spot, looking somewhat embarrassed and out of place. The closeness gives Tony the opportunity to look closer and find that, yes, the man _is_ incredibly handsome, with a jawline that could cut glass and dark hair that looks softer than clouds.

Is it hot in here? It must be, since Peter got so red when Tony complimented him, and the man’s face is pink too – or maybe that was their routine. Oh God, Tony better not be blushing. The last time he blushed Clint made fun of him for hours – he even wrote a song about it and got the kids to learn it! They sang it at him for weeks!

“- but you can call me Bucky.” Tony flinches back, brain restarting and focusing on the present, and he finds the man several steps closer, with his eyes trained on Tony. His steel-blue eyes that look like they’ve only ever been sad and make Tony want to wrap the man up in a blanket and give him a cup of tea – or maybe bourbon, with all the eyeliner smudged around his eyes. 

Sam and Clint were completely wrong. He doesn’t look anything like a raccoon – just an incredibly hot guy who looks like he could use a hug. 

Wait… did he say something? Because he’s looking at Tony like he did and… _Shit._

“I, uh, could you repeat that?” Tony asks, hating how his voice shakes, “Cause I think I missed a few words.” 

The question puts a smile on his face and – yep, Tony is gone. He is long gone over this man, because his smile looks like it could cure every disease, end all wars, and make the sun shine in the middle of the night. 

“M’name is James,” the guy says, voice soft like his fluffy hair, “But you can call me Bucky. M’the new acrobat.” 

“Yeah, I saw that,” Tony replies, mouth moving before his brain can move on from the smile. He mentally curses himself out with a blue streak that even Natasha would be shocked to hear, then adds, thrusting his hand out, “I’m Tony, and you can call me, uh, Tony, so… yeah.”

The man – Bucky – takes his hand carefully, giving it a gentle shake, and Tony notices for the very first time that not all of the man’s arm is present. His costume – a full body leotard that matches Peter’s, hides his arms beneath fabric, and his gloves his hide his hands, but a small slip of skin is visible between the sleeve and the glove, revealing silver metal. 

Tony doesn’t make a big deal out of it – his chest was seen enough times by accident for him to know how embarrassing it can be, even if the person viewing it isn’t rude, so he says nothing, though he would love to pester Bucky with endless questions about his grip strength, the sealing of the prosthetic that lets him hold on with such strength without it falling off, and more. 

Instead of asking, he smiles again, probably looking stupid with the glitter on his pink face, then gestures toward the other side of the stage and says, words tripping over themselves to be heard, “I play in the band, so I better, you know, get over there and, uh, play. I – yeah… so, um, nice meeting you!” he adds, before turning tail and actually running away. 

Thankfully, Pepper appears as he runs, calling out final calls for places in her “Don’t try me” voice, which covers him running away with an incredibly pink face. He leaves Bucky on stage, staring after him with what Tony knows must be confusion, and skips down the stairs to the pit.

The piano bench is a thankful hiding place, especially with the shadows that hide how red his face is. Normally, he would be excited to play, but he doubts he’ll be able to focus enough on the ivories to play a single note, not with the new acrobat on his mind.


End file.
